Rating – ***1/2 (3.5/5)
Staying quiet comes tough to us, especially today where we are hustling and bustling in metro cities, and hence when silence becomes a tool essential for your survival, it’s daunting. That’s probably the idea John Krasinski and the makers of A Quiet Place had when they made the first movie which went on to become a sleeper hit. A sequel later, we have a prequel in the form of A Quiet Place: Day One – where it all started.
Right from the first frame, director Michael Sarnoski wants you to fathom that New York City, on an average produces 90 decibels of noise, so what would be better for preparing for the residents for an unanticipated alien invasion that requires them to be ‘dead quiet’ or they will be dead.
It’s such a fascinating choice for the creators to move the setting from remote locations, where keeping quiet, while difficult is doable – to core New York City (NYC). To their credit, it pays off to a large extent. Where the first two installments focused on families saving each other, we see two strangers here forming a bond with a terminally ill Samira (Lupita Nyong’o) and an Englishman, who is in NYC to study law, Eric (Joseph Quinn) but the one that matters – is a cat, Frodo.
The friendship these three form makes for an emotional arc to connect to which is done effectively. The noises are heightened, the extraterrestrial creatures, when they come out of nowhere give you the jolts you anticipate but still get shocked by.
There’s a minimalistic nature to the way sounds are used and it was probably intentional but here, a ‘quiet’ place isn’t exactly quiet all the time as the whispers are frequent, heavy rainfall allows our protagonists to scream is worry and frustration, and most importantly there is a lot of options to distract the ET creatures to.
Even then, Sarnoski crafts some meticulous yet claustrophobic chase sequences, and the standout was when Eric, Samira, and Frodo are swimming their way out of an alien trying to get them in a flooded tunnel.
This franchise has shined by maintaining the interpersonal relationships being a key factor for you to cling on to, and in many ways, this bond between strangers results in more poignant moments than others. The roles are reversed and subtly so, where Eric is the more emotional individual, and despite of being an ill person awaiting her death, Samira is your courageous woman who lends her support to Eric. Both actors are fabulous with the assignment provided and are able to carve deep performances which doesn’t just make you feel for them but maybe shed a tear as well.
It also seems fitting that Nyong’o is used to an eerie setting where she wowed everyone with Jordan Peele’s Us; and our man Joseph Quinn has been fighting demogorgons/ET like creatures since Stranger Things – so why not have them come together but in drastically different characters.
A Quiet Place isn’t devoid of its blank moments that feel, well, blank. There are moments that don’t necessarily contribute to the plot even though you interpret the intention.
In the end, it is safe to say that despite three movies into the franchise, this idea continues to prove that it has multiple avenues it can explore and while it will never have the novelty that the first introduction had, it has the potential to be a worthy watch with the right people helming the project and the right people acting in it.
